Is it me or has NTB, Norway's primary wire service, hardened the tone of its Iraq/Bush coverage? Perhaps the Kay interim report has triggered an escalation into all-out attack mode among NTB's journalists, or perhaps they were always this bad and I didn't notice. Some of last week's articles are in any case laugh-out ridiculous, giving the impression less of a news agency than of a herd in a frenzy.

Take the story about Bush's love poem for his wife Laura. In English, the poem is, um, corny, but charming. Not much to be ashamed of unless you're a poet or your wife a critic. NTB's widely quoted translated excerpts ("Åh, min klump i senga, jeg savner deg så"), on the other hand, are worse than corny, they're pathetic, playing nicely to the dumb-Bush stereotype. But the real blow is delivered at the end of the article:

Bush landed on the hangar ship USS Abraham Lincoln on May 1. In a pilot's uniform, marked "Commander in Chief", he declared an end to the largest part of the fighting in Iraq. Since then, 80 American soldiers have been killed in Iraq.

Is this an attempt to justify NTB's descent into celebrity mag terroritory, or do they really believe there's a connection between Bush's poetry skills and his political skills?

Today's NTB story headlined CIA Fears Border Conflict Between Portugal and Spain is even worse.

The CIA fears a border conflict between Spain and Portugal. The Portuguese are making demands for the Spanish border town Olivenza and the surrounding area, writes the CIA in its "World Factbook". The inhabitants don't know whether to laught or cry.

Portugal from time to time repeats its territorial claims to Spain, it is claimed in the handbook which is publicly available, also on the Internet. That both countries today are members of the EU, and otherwise live in peace as good neighbours, is not mentioned in this connection.

NTB quotes local residents who wonder how the CIA can be trusted to know anything really important when they get such a simple thing wrong, placing, as a Spanish newspaper puts it, Olivenza in the same group as Kashmir and Gaza. Olivenza's police chief calls it all a joke, and notes a suspicious lack of Portuguese terrorists in the area.

Wow, "the CIA" (or some unfortunate employee charged with maintaining one of the lesser interesting chapters of the factbook), must have really gotten it wrong. So I looked it up: "Portugal has periodically reasserted claims to territories around the town of Olivenza, Spain". That's it. What's more, it's true. According to the usually trustworthy Wikipedia, Olivenza is not formally recognized by Portugal as a part of Spain, (in 1995 a report referred to the "Territory of Spain and Olivenza"). And they have periodically reasserted their claims for the area. In 1981, a former PM even wanted to occupy it! I doubt many Portuguese care about this, it's unlikely to cause a conflict, and it may not belong in a section about "disputed territories", but it is true. The Factbook gets it right, and NTB does not. There are no references to "border conflicts", no comparisons to Kashmir, only a short statement in which every word happens to be true.

But so far NTB's article has merely been inaccurate. Unsatisfied with just implying that the CIA is incompetent, NTB's nameless journalist decides to spell it out - and this is where tedious gives way to pathetic:

From the perspective of state- and international law the case is of course less than insignificant. But it no doubt contributes to another picture of the CIA than what is poured out in ever more TV series and movies, where the Americans praise the skill and ingeniousness their intelligence service.

After September 11, 2001, the Americans have of course every right to fear and fight terrorism. But it is a long way from this right to a paranoia where one perceives brewing conflicts in every corner, and a terrorist behind each bush.

Quick, give this person a blog! In a blog this sudden injection of personal opinion into a news story would be hyperbole - inaccurate, ridiculous hyperbole - but at least it would be appropriate. Here it's just weird, pathetic and very very sad. What's going on at NTB? What's going on at Aftenposten, who published this story unedited? (Nettavisen also runs it, but at least they had the sense to cut out the moronic part.)

Hmmm...a similar case of newspaper inaccuracy happened in the US:

---------------
On June 21, 1988, the following item appeared on page 3 of the daily Bloom Beacon, sandwiched between an article on the plummeting price of cow tongue, and "Dear Abby":

COMMUNISTS AT U.S. DOORSTEP
by Milo Bloom, Investigative Reporter

Today it was discovered that after
years of aggressive expansion,
the Soviet Union has stretched its
borders to within a mere 12 miles
of American Soil. The State
Department has no immediate
comment.

...which wasn't particularly surprising since the State Department had beeen aware for some time that the easternmost tip of Siberia comes within a polar bear's whisker of Alaska...[*]
--------------

This resulted in genuine, tragic consequences: The Great Larouche Toad-Frog Massacree. Pray such a thing does not happen in Spain/Portugal.

[*] Excerpted from Breathed, Berkeley; 1986; _Bloom County Babylon: Five Years of Basic Naughtiness_; Little, Brown, & Co:New York.

In view of our audience here, perhaps I should post an explanatory URL:

http://www.geocities.com/taboylewebserver/story.html

There.

The Norwegian media has sunk to new lows in their pathetic Bush-hatred. Presently, I have as much respect for Norwegian journalists as I have for Al-Jazeera.

Again: Thank god for the Blogoshere.

It looks like my fellow Californians have recalled Gray Davis and chosen to make Arnold Schwarzenegger our new governor. the Norwegian media have been telling its audience for some time now that Americans are dangerously ignorant. Tonight, I am inclined to agree.

But seriously, I have wondered for some time now where NTB, NRK, and America's other critics planned to take their campaign. What is their ultimate aim? Is it to persuade the public to take Norway out of NATO or to join with France in some attempt to weaken the United States? Are they simply complaining, or do they have a practical agenda?

The Norwegian public loses, because all of the disinformation that gets broadcast or printed over there won't help them understand or make sense of what Americans do and why they do it.

Tonight in California, I am having trouble myself understanding what the California electorate has done.

Bjørn, I think I am done reading the Norwegian papers. I'll check back in a few years to see if anything has changed. It's unfortunate that so few Norwegians pay attention to what you're doing. It's a lonely job you've got there. Good luck to you.

- Gill

Bjørn,

Very correct observation! The NTB has for a long time represented the worst of Norwegian journalism, and considering they are the largest content-provider to our newspapers, that is serious.

I first noticed it as a member of the Norwegian skeptics (Skepsis). Every science-news item came through from the NTB totally botchered, and silly pseudo-science and hysterics became breaking news.

Also when it comes to politics, the NTB is the nest hatching out most of the ill-researched anti-American (particularly anti-Bush) drivel in our press. Remember the (later withdrawn) Guardian article which misquoted Wolfowitz on oil and Iraq (See http://blogs.salon.com/0001561/2003/06/05.html#a2644 )? It came into Norway through a NTB journalist, who like many of his local collegues didn't even bother to look up at DefenseLink to read the whole interview.

The examples you cite could be multiplied with just a few hours of googling.

Speaking of which: Here is my own past NTB slamming: http://www.google.com/search?num=20&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&safe=off&q=site%3Ablogs.salon.com+ntb+inurl%3A0001561

Bjørn, NTB has always been terribly incompetent, not only with regards to Bush or science.
More about NTB here:
http://www.tenkselv.no/main.aspx?id=121

or in countless other articles published at our website TenkSelv
http://www.tenkselv.no/

(ALL LINKS IN NORWEGIAN)

Well I thought the original poem was goofy and pathetic so it's hard to imagine a translation that could be worse.
But, to be fair to W, writing goofy pathetic poems to the love of one's life is perfectly honorable. They just shouldn't be shown to anyone else.

Ahh, but Gill, ignorance is bliss. And less stressful.

Look at how the Euros who know so much go apoplectic.

Lileks said it best, via Instapundit:

SCHWARZENEGGER RECALL PRESCIENCE: Back when this first came up, James Lileks wrote that the best reason to support a Schwarzenegger governorship was that "like all typical examples of American craziness, this will just horrify the Europeans."

Now Andrew Sullivan points out that he's right, with this quote from Le Monde:

Here's a state with 35 million people and a GDP about the size of France's. . . . And yet here's a state where, at a cost of millions of dollars, voters can dismiss a sitting governor barely eleven months after his election.

You can see why the unpopular French establishment would regard this as dangerous.

UPDATE: Roger Simon has more evidence of Lileks' genius. Chortle.

Gill:
You said (re the Ca election): "Americans are dangerously ignorant. Tonight, I am inclined to agree."

As a fellow Californian (SOUTHERN to be precise) I think you are quite mistaken. However, since reviewing the results of this election county by county, (and noting that the counties around San Francisco voted overwhelmingly for Bustamecha) I am not surprised by your comments.

Rather than turn this into a local feud, I think this is a turning point in politics. Hold your politicians accountable. Better yet, elect non-politicians who have no special interests to pander to.

Bjørn,

As you may have noted before, my take on the modern general discourse (as it is projected here on the walls of Western Civilisations peculiarly postmodern Platonic Cave)is that it is more or less a manifestation of tyranny. In this I mean that it is a projection of power which exerts force over the general population (in this case often referred to as the "herd" by its central figures) in a way that has little if anything to do with either their well being, or their capacity to make free and informed decisions. In fact, it has very little attachment to any meaningful definition of truth (or even factual accuracy) at all. Relativism and moral equivalence have seen to that by creating the philosophical panacea where intellectual dishonesty and moral depravity can be readily spun into a shining suit of self righteous indignation backed by the ubiquitousness of terms like "social justice". An odious triangle of "mainstream" Media, Academia and entrenched Civil Structures of the State (almost regardless of who is actually in power), have become almost surreally interwoven in Europe, and fixated on the narrowest of ideological agendas. The fact that the vast majority of NGOs are also ensconsed in this wide web, even where their stated raison d'etre seems completely discordant with it, is further evidence I believe, of how close we teeter to practical tyranny... in perhaps its most insidious guise yet seen in human history.

I actually don't think the situation is that much different in the States, except that in its case, the so called (a misnomer really) "Culture Wars", have not been a clean sweep for this New Age Leftism (for lack of a yet to be coined term which embraces what IT really is). There, and for reasons that have much to do with intangibles that still persist from the philosophical symphony born in its Founding, the idea that there is some meaningful epistemology in human history, and a true moral center in human events, has not yielded completely to the self indulgent "belief" in... "Whatever"-ness. For a long time, there has been a creeping polarization occurring in Western Civilisation which has moved the rest of the world in ways both explainable and mysterious as it has formed fissures and fault lines in its own tectonic movements. To go back to the Plato Cave reference, I think that in many ways September 11th was like a blindingly blight flash that went off in our reality that for a brief moment, outlined starkly the real forms and shapes at work in our formerly foggy and shadow laden world. Its legacy for most is a gnawing anxiety over the state of affairs, and it has accelerated the machinations of would be "philosopher king" puppet masters to recast the fog and ambiguity with renewed vigor, lest too many begin to rub their eyes and look about ... as some indeed have... even here in Europe.

I believe that the polarization is accelerating still, and that the next year, culminating in the US election cycle will be an interesting time. (And I mean this along the vein of the ancient Chinese curse of "May you live in interesting times".) The kind of mad rhetoric and cultivation of hatred and ideological radicalism is in full swing, and its impact is impossible to predict. What it means for, and how it is enmeshed with the War Against Terrorism is a whole other conversation, but I think it is safe to say you and I will see more of the phenomenon you reveal in this post. And sadly too...you will see more and more of your countrymen (and mine) embracing well polished and nicely dressed hatred (but hatred nonetheless), in the name of things most odiously attached to words like Justice and Morality during the next year. (I just got back from London and have seen this in circles that surprise even me... and I've become jaded.) I don't want to depress you... merely prepare you.

Because they will hate you too Bjørn... even though its clear you seek to stand in light and Liberty. In truth...because of it.. but as Hitchens said recently... you're on the right side of history.

In any case, keep up the Good Fight.

Cheers

Kevin McDonnell

On the poem I agree (without reading the thing itself) with Mr Farris.
On the more important issue of Schwarzenegger: if my (Dutch) newspaper reports it correctly 48% of the voters did not support the recall and so gave at least some credit to Davis. S did won some 46% of the recallers that means only about 25% of the voters (and about 16% of the people who had the right to vote). Strange.
The slogan "Hold your politicians accountable" is nice but from what I heard until now I understood that Arnold anounced not to raise (or even lower) taxes and simultaneously solve the deficit problem AND making no clear statements on where to cut on spending. How can HE be hold responsible?

(off topic? your rules for posting are very good; I think of copying them)

Your Dutch newspaper is incorrect.
As usual when it comes to European media reporting on American politics.

The fact is that almost all voters voted on both the Recall and the Replacement ballot;
http://vote2003.ss.ca.gov/Returns/summary.html

3.5 million voted No on the recall
3.7 million voted for Arnold Schwarzenegger

When adding the other Republican candidate, 4.8 million people voted Republican.
That's almost 40% more votes than Davis got, and 90% more votes than Bustamente got.

A clear Republican victory, regardless of how European "news"papers try to portray it.

About 10 million Kaleefornians voted, 2 mil absentee ballots. Drudge had a link to the red/green split by county and it was nasty. And it doesn't mean that all 2m absentee votes have been counted.

As for the Spanish story; actually, your Norwegian press was recycling; I saw the same story on France's EuroNews a couple weeks ago.
They sent a reporter around the city: "Don't you think it's funny that the stupid Americans think you are a conflict zone?" Ha ha.

As for the Spanish story; actually, your Norwegian press was recycling; I saw the same story on France's EuroNews a couple weeks ago.
They sent a reporter around the city: "Don't you think it's funny that the stupid Americans think you are a conflict zone?" Ha ha.

Nameless Dutchman up there...just because only 52% voted for recall and 46% voted for Schwarzenegger does not mean that only 25% (roughly .52 x .46) voted for Schwarzenegger. Your vote on the recall is decoupled from your vote for a successor, should there be a recall.

So if you think a recall is a bad idea on principle, which many did, you can still go ahead and vote for someone in case the recall goes through. The Lt. Gov, Bustamante, was telling people to vote no on the recall, but vote yes for him. This was not contradictory.

Grupo dos Amigos de Olivença

*

Official Notice to the Press

The Direction Board of the “Group of the Friends of Olivenza”, congregated, today, in Olivenza, for evaluating the current state of the litigation that opposes the two Iberian peninsular States (due to the Spanish occupation of Olivenza), its implications in the most general relationship between the two countries, and then approved the following document:

A Step to Olivenza

1.
The Question of Olivenza exists and is current. Portugal does not recognize the sovereignty of Spain over Olivenza and, with the constitutional blessing, it considers that the territory is, de jure, Portuguese.
The Portuguese Parliament has this subject for discussion in a plenary session. In recent decisions of the Portuguese Courts, related to the workmanships in the Ajuda’s Bridge, it was remembered that the conflict remains and only will reach a solution trough a diplomatic effort.
At last, with greater and decisive relevance, the border limits between the two countries are not fixed, in this zone, throughout a wide space of few tens of kilometres. Is an unusual fact between two Western European States that is border has not bean recognized... Unquestionably, independently of its visibility, the Question of Olivenza is present in the Portuguese-Spanish politics agenda.

2.
The Portuguese Government, following the Constitutional order, has explained, few times, that "it keeps the known position about the boundary delineation of the domestic territory" and "Olivenza is a Portuguese territory". Still now, the Mr. Minister of the Foreign Affairs reiterated "we have a problem but we must resolve it "even so "we cannot resolve it in a night"...

3.
The effective existence of the litigation about the return of the sovereignty of Olivenza has caused, for its nature, a real and a negative effect in the relationship between Portugal and Spain.
If, apparently, the disagreement only appears in "lesser" episodes, then, many of the friction and difficulties that emerge in excellent areas of the bilateral politics, find a explanation in the existence of a deaf suspicion that comes from the persistence and the unlikeness of the conflict.

4.
It is not helpful, not permissible and not sustainable, in the Rule of Law, to continuing in the attempt to hide a problem of this magnitude.
The existence of the Question of Olivenza damages the Iberian peninsular relationship and its lack of recognition from the politician power impose the frankly treatment that this Question must receive, that is, he needs to be enrolled - without subterfuges - in the diplomatic agenda of Portugal.
This subject excited in Spain, in the last days, a surprising prominence. For the attention that was given to it, they had been well express the unlike and the nervousness of its authorities in conjugation with the little information and the badly understanding of its public opinion.
It is not, therefore, reasonable or correct that the agreement of such appointment puts in cause the good relations with Spain and harms other important interests of our country.
The politics of good neighbourhood between the two States cannot be constructed on mistakes, resentments and facts (badly) consummated. The hierarchy of the interests in presence is not pleased with the artificial minimization of the Olivenza’s usurpation.

5.
The today circumstances, integrating Portugal and Spain in the same political, economic and military spaces, verifying between themselves an approaching ambience and a collaboration in vast areas, are the most favourable so that, without any inhibitions or complaint, the Portuguese State assumes finally that the moment is found to place the Question of Olivenza in the Portuguese-Spanish diplomatic agenda and to demand the fulfilment of the legality and of the International law.

6.
The “Group of the Friends of Olivenza”, receiving the yearnings of so many Portuguese and with the legitimacy that confer the 65 years of efforts for the retrocession of this territory, appeal to the Sovereignty agencies, in the certainty that they will find the appropriate ways to support the Portugal’s rights, and taking in account the respect for the History, the Culture and the Law, they will take ahead the defence of a Portuguese Olivenza.
The “Group of the Friends of Olivenza” request to all the citizens to ask that, in the full exercise of its rights, they expose and they become public its support for the defence of a Portuguese Olivenza.

Olivenza, 20 of September of 2003.
The Direction Board.
_______________________________
Rua Portas S. Antão, 58 (Casa do Alentejo) - 1150-268 Lisboa
www.olivenca.org
olivenca@olivenca.org
Tlm. 96 743 17 69
Fax. 21 259 05 77

Dear Bjørn Stærk,

Receive my Thanks for have taking a momment about Olivença!

Manuel Alonso

Your website is so beautiful!

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